As an exchange student I have never watched your country’s most popular sport before. The football game on Sept. 16 was the first football game I’ve ever seen in my life, and I loved it. In my country, we do have a sport called football, which is the biggest and most popular sport in Sweden, but that’s not your football — it’s soccer.
I had a hard time trying to understand all of the rules and what happened in the game, but junior Mackenzie George, who took me to the game, explained a lot of it to me. The whole experience was awesome anyway, and I think I will learn more about it after some more games.
The whole atmosphere during the game was amazing because everyone was so into it, including the players themselves and the fans in the bleachers. It was so cool seeing them support their football team with CMR clothes and painted faces.
All the things around like the cheerleaders, the Wranglers and the band was also a big part of it, which improved the spirit even more. It was amazing for me to see and experience since we don’t have school spirit at all in Sweden.
At home, all sports that children and youths play are in private clubs and have nothing to do with school. And we don’t have many clubs in school either. Because of this, we never do something fun as a school together which makes the schools in Sweden more formal and more boring, in my opinion. We don’t even have a mascot, no school colors and no name for our students like your name Rustlers. Another thing I miss in Swedish schools is events like HomeComing.
The school spirit and the opportunity to really get involved and meet new people that way is one of the things I was looking forward to the most before I came to the United States. I have been here for just about a month now, but I already know that I got placed in the right spot because I love it here and it more than satisfies my expectations.